A weekend in London, at the Hoxton

The Hox­ton Hotel (‘the urban lodge’) in Lon­don recently had a sale, where a lucky few could pur­chase rooms for £1 a night or £29 a night. Most came away with noth­ing, but Sam was lucky enough to not only get a room, but two con­sec­u­tive nights on the week­end of her birth­day! Fantastic!

Said week­end started last Fri­day, we each took the day off and took our quick and usual route into the cen­tre; meet­ing out­side Leices­ter Square, cases in tow, ready to be tourists for a cou­ple of days. After apple juice and lunch in St James’ park we took the North­ern Line to Old Street and checked in, elec­tri­fied by the over­whelm­ing trendi­ness that is both the hotel and sur­round­ing area.

Note the scis­sor, paper, stone pil­lows. With pre-booked tick­ets for Avenue Q at the 5:30pm mat­inée it wasn’t long before we were back on the streets, explor­ing Hox­ton and Shored­itch and grab­bing a Tor­tilla (potato quiche) and roasted veg­gies from the excel­lent and deli­cious Food Hall on Old Street. We LOVE this place and would spend a for­tune here if left unaccompanied.

Mid­dle of the mid­dle in the stalls we watched the well praised Avenue Q as the Gary Cole­man ref­er­ences whisked over our heads and the ‘grab your dick and dou­ble click’ line resounded. Though we enjoyed it, the abun­dant acclaim meant it did not meet our high expec­ta­tions. Away from the Noël Cow­ard the­atre and back to Hox­ton Square where we had reserved a table at The Appren­tice, as rec­om­mended by a friend. A lit­tle unnerved at the empti­ness of the place we perused the night menu’s offer­ings, opt­ing for the spicy leek and car­rot soup of the day starter and the “Osso Bucco with risotto Mil­lanise and gre­mo­lata sauce” as main, with Sam choos­ing the Salmon and spinach dish. Osso Bucco is a dish of tasty veal shanks and it was pure bliss — I didn’t need my knife to cut the meat, it sim­ply fell apart, all juicy and scrump­tious — it was perfect.

On Sat­ur­day we con­sid­ered rush­ing to Leices­ter square to grab the­atre tick­ets early in the morn­ing; but ris­ing late at 10am we quickly aban­doned this notion, instead just fol­low­ing our noses. Up ‘n’ down Brick Lane, past Les Trois Gar­cons — too eccen­tric for Sam’s tastes, to the Food Hall for caramelized gar­lic bread, cheese, spinach tor­tilla and anchovy cau­li­flow­ers, respec­tively devoured by the canal off Upper Street near Angel.

Dart­ing back in via tube we saw the sites; Trafal­gar square, Buck­ing­ham palace, Hyde Park and all that. After a tea/cappuccino recu­per­a­tion stop spent watch­ing the pass­ing horses and cyclists in Hyde Park we tried to find an evening event. All the movies at the BFI film fes­ti­val were sold out, as were any shows we’d planned to see — judg­ing by the boards in the square. Music events were the next option but of course the week­end doesn’t have free papers to look these up! Going out on a limb, we headed to the Apollo The­atre look­ing for tick­ets to Rain Man star­ring Josh Hart­nett and Adam God­ley; luck would have it they still had some and for £31 each we grabbed upper cir­cle seats for the 7:30pm show­ing. With two hours to spare we had a set menu Chi­nese din­ner at Mr Kong’s in Chi­na­town — the usual duck pan­cakes, sesame bread, sea­weed et al.

Nei­ther of us had seen the Dustin Hoff­man movie, we went in with­out any expec­ta­tions and with­out grounds for com­par­i­son. We left absolutely stunned — wow; the play was bril­liant with God­ley and Hart­nett supremely leav­ing us on ten­der hooks. This was the first straight up play we’d seen together and no doubt we’ll be back for more of the same.

Sun­day took us to the areas of Lon­don we wouldn’t nor­mally go, Lon­don Bridge, Tower Bridge, the Tower of Lon­don and later South Kens­ing­ton for lunch and the muse­ums. We stopped at the Hoop & Toy in Kens­ing­ton for a rel­a­tively cheap but tasty steak/burger with a bot­tle of red ‘Cape Promise Pino­tage’. With alco­hol fuel­ing our sys­tem we pleas­antly stum­bled around the Vic­to­ria and Albert museum, nap­ping by the large mid­dle East­ern car­pets, and then later to the Nat­ural His­tory Museum — through Geol­ogy, past the birds and into the realm of the dinosaurs, before being ush­ered out at the close of play.

More tea breaks back at the Hox­ton Hotel where we picked up our bags and aim­lessly chat­ted as the time whisked away, soak­ing up the cool­ness of the vibe, shoes off and relaxed. Then home and an end to our won­der­ful week­end; look­ing for­ward to the next one.